


Detention

by cherrysprite



Series: Quarantine Fics [8]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Bisexual (?) Theo Raeken, Bisexual Liam Dunbar, Detention, Enemies to Lovers, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, High School, Humor, Kissing, M/M, Making Out, Misunderstandings, bc they have no shame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23775235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrysprite/pseuds/cherrysprite
Summary: After Theo being annoying all semester, Liam finally snaps and does something that lands them both in detention, but maybe being put in a locked room alone together is actually for the better.
Relationships: Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken
Series: Quarantine Fics [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1691383
Comments: 15
Kudos: 243





	Detention

**Author's Note:**

> The songs mentioned in this story aren't very relevant to the plot, but I do recommend them anyway :)
> 
> Sex and Question Marks - The Wombats: https://youtu.be/XeUhrJr8atI  
> 505 - Arctic Monkeys: https://youtu.be/MrmPDUvKyLs

Theo Raeken made Liam's blood boil every time he looked at him, and he had to look at him often. They shared their lunch period together, plus second period, which was the absolute worst. He'd gotten stuck sitting next to Theo for the entire semester in English class, which was as annoying as he was.

The guy was commonly referred to as being a dick, and that was _pretty_ much it. Considering Theo's relatively small group of friends yet big reputation, Liam assumed that everyone else had figured out what a dick Theo was too. He was all sarcastic remarks and unenthusiastic movements that had landed him the reputation of being a burnout, but Liam wasn't lucky enough to only think of him that way.

It was a shame that such an attractive face had gone to waste on someone like Theo, because he was more than a _dick_ to Liam. He was a _mega_ -dick. It always seemed to Liam like Theo sought him out to make a fool out of on purpose, as if he got off on doing it to Liam specifically. It started with random jabs and judgmental comments in class and escalated to Theo just plain stealing things off his desk just to irritate him. It was important to note that none of the other people who sat around Theo got bothered this much by him - in fact, he left them alone. He just particularly enjoyed Liam's suffering.

At first, he hadn't minded it that much, since Liam had been learning to control his anger and he was doing well, but there was only so much a person could take. He went from simmering with annoyance to, like he said before, boiling with irritation in a matter of weeks, and he was about to reach his breaking point.

One Wednesday morning, one that was already bad, Liam noticed Theo eyeing Liam's plastic water bottle on his desk for a few minutes, which meant he was able to intercept it when he finally went for it. Well aware that their English teacher was watching it all go down, Liam snatched it out of his grip, uncapped it, and threw it _hard_ at Theo's chest, letting it spill all over his grey sweatshirt and jeans. 

Theo pushed back in his chair away from the desk and Mrs. Anders gasped along with half of the class. It was then that Liam actually registered what he just did, now that Theo was dripping water and gaping at him. Mason, who was sitting next to him, had the whole thing on video but was laughing too hard to contain it. 

_"Liam!"_ Mrs. Anders exclaimed. "Are you _kidding_ me?"

"I-"

"What in _God's name_ possessed you to do that?" When Liam didn't answer, frozen, she folded her arms and raised her eyebrow. "Really, I want to know the answer."

Liam glanced at Mason, who was still trying to stifle his laughter, and then Theo, who was trying to get his wet sweatshirt over his head. "I-" He stammered. Theo glared at him and threw his sweatshirt his way, and Liam stopped trying to be nice. "Have you not seen him stealing stuff off my desk all semester? He had it coming!"

"Oh my God, stop talking," Mason breathed, head down on his desk. Mrs. Anders was scowling at all three of them now. 

"Mason, I'd think it best if you be quiet," She snapped, and Mason quickly shut up. "You're right," She admitted tightly, like she didn't want to. "So you'll _both_ have detention after school today. You'll sort out and clean the classroom library. If you want to act like children, you'll get a child's task. Together." Their classmates 'ooohed' and snickered.

"Mrs. Anders-" Theo protested, but her gaze shot over to him just as judgmentally as it did to Liam.

"I suggest you go get cleaned up," She interrupted, and her tone left no room for reasoning. Theo shot one last look to Liam before getting up, knocking the water bottle in his lap onto the floor, and walking out.

+++

"Yeah, I'm sorry, Mom," Liam sighed into his phone, waiting outside Mrs. Anders room after last period. "I didn't mean to, it just kind of happened."

"It's fine," Jenna, his mother, said. "He really did have it coming. I wish you would have done it in a less...obvious way, but the little shit deserved it," She laughed, letting Liam know it was really okay. "How long do you have to stay?"

"Until four," Liam said. "She said that's as long as she can keep us, so I guess she's going full-discipline on us. We've got to clean up the classroom library, and that's huge," Liam explained, remembering the mess that the shelves of books in the back of the classroom were. "I'm sure we'll fill the time, at least."

"Beat his ass somewhere that isn't school property if you need to," Jenna said. Liam didn't laugh, considering it. "I'm kidding! Don't do that. Maybe just throw more water on him."

"I'm thinking about it," Liam admitted just as he caught sight of Theo coming down the empty hallway towards him. "I've got to go, he's here. I'll text you."

He hung up and looked away from Theo as he came to stand next to him. He was holding his damp sweatshirt over one arm, now just wearing the black tank top he had under it and still slightly-wet jeans. He eyed Liam with something Liam couldn't place - somewhere between disdain...admiration? "Thanks for that," Theo snarked at him when he made the mistake of looking at him. "Really spiced up my day, walking around like I pissed myself."

Liam just shrugged at him, looking straight ahead at the hallway as they waited for Mrs. Anders to come by to unlock the door. 

"Aw, is Dunbar scared? First detention?" Theo teased, grinning, but Liam didn't find him funny in the slightest.

"No," Liam scoffed, giving him a side eye. "I just don't want to be here."

"That's the point of detention," Theo reminded much more snottily than he needed to. Liam didn't get to dignify that with a response before Mrs. Anders came over to let them in.

"In you go," She said, herding the two of them into the classroom and leading them to trudge over to the classroom collection. "Your job today is simple. I want every one of these books sorted into three bins. One for fiction, one for nonfiction, and one for damaged books. Clean the shelves and put the undamaged books in alphabetical order. Don't kill each other. That's it," She instructed. Liam felt his energy draining as she talked. "It needs to be done by four."

She started walking towards the door again, and Liam turned to her in confusion. "Wait, you're leaving?"

"You're both good kids," She said. Liam looked Theo up and down pointedly, and Theo smiled at him sarcastically. "I trust you both not to tear the place apart while I'm gone. Learn to get along while I make copies for the next hour and a half."

+++

As soon as the door clicked shut, Theo knocked a book off the shelf onto the floor. "Really?" Liam asked, Theo looking at him like he did nothing as he knocked another one down. "Great, we're starting this way."

"Do you always talk this much?" Theo commented, knocking books off one by one until they fell on the ground. "Because it's going to be a long fucking hour and a half if you always talk this much."

"Who's the one talking now?" Liam shot, pulling over the three empty bins so they could start. 

He ignored Theo puttering around the classroom and got to work. He had no doubt that Mrs. Anders would keep them another day if they didn't get done. He'd had her for Honors English last year, which had been hard, but eleventh grade Honors English was even worse, so she had had to put up with his low quality work for years by now. She wasn't a particularly nice teacher either, and she definitely had her favorites, Liam not being one of them. 

He tossed the books into bins without much analysis of them, just looking to get it done good enough to pass as completed, while Theo walked around doing nothing. Mrs. Anders hadn't taken away their phones, so Theo was occupied on that, annoyingly switching from song to song and not deciding on any of them. When he finally found something, it had been at least ten minutes of tapping skip, and it was still one of the songs he'd skipped before. He set his phone on one of the shelves and knelt down next to Liam to start sorting them too, which surprised him. He'd thought he was going to have to do this by himself.

That wasn't to say Theo was good or helpful about it. He put things in the wrong bin even after looking at them, so Liam had to focus on fixing his mistakes more than he did organizing them himself, and he was acting entirely clueless about it. At least neither of them were talking, on the bright side.

Theo's phone buzzed with a text and he quickly snatched his phone off the shelf above, checking it fast. He rolled his eyes, tapped back an answer, and let his music keep playing afterwards. 

He was kind of interesting to observe, Liam thought. He moved so freely yet managed to be tense in the simplest of circumstances, and he looked like he was clenching his jaw all the time. Liam tried it on himself for a few seconds, and it wasn't comfortable. He bet the guy got headaches all the time.

As they worked, Liam had no idea what songs they were listening to, since obviously Theo hadn't told him, but he kind of liked what was playing then. He assumed the title was "Sex and Question Marks" based on the chorus, and he caught Theo mouthing it out of the corner of his eye. 

So he _was_ human.

 _Humans have some motives,_ Liam thought idly. _Humans have reasons for being annoying._

"Why are you such a dick?" Liam asked casually. No matter how annoyed he was by Theo on a regular basis, he wasn't anywhere near scared of the guy. Theo could try all he wanted, but he would never be intimidating to Liam, not even when he looked at him in surprise at the question.

"Why did you dump water all over my pants?" Theo said back after a half second of consideration, a smirk forming on his lips.

"Because you were being a dick."

"Maybe I just like the attention."

" _Aw_ , don't get enough at home?" Liam said without even thinking about it, a childish lilt to his voice. Theo opened his mouth before snapping it shut, scowling at the books in front of him. Struck a nerve, obviously, and Liam had the decency to feel bad about it.

Instead of answering him again, Theo got up from the floor and walked around the classroom for a little while longer. Liam heard the ding of the bell Mrs. Anders kept on her desk, and then four more coming in quick succession. He wanted to turn around and tell Theo to be quiet, but he decided not to make the guy any more upset than he already had. He guessed Theo wasn't having a stellar day either. He _had_ dumped water all over him, after all, and then insulted him and his home life.

Liam didn't turn around again until he heard Theo hop up on one of the desks, sitting on it and facing him. "Sorry you'll miss family dinner," He sneered as a comeback around fifteen minutes too late for it to do anything but sound bitter. "It must _suck_ having to follow a schedule like that all the time."

"I didn't mean it like that," Liam said quietly, his shoulders sagging a little. Theo rolled his eyes.

"It's fine," Theo waved him off, hopping off the desk and coming back to work again, this time a few shelves over so that they're not in speaking distance. Liam was content to work like that for awhile.

Another song started up on Theo's phone, a lot less upbeat. He knew it that time, _505_ by Arctic Monkeys, and it kind of matched Theo's looks weirdly enough, in his black tank top showing off muscled arms and his ripped jeans. It was clearly one of Theo's favorites, because as soon as the opening lines came through the phone, his entire demeanor switched. The song, which was kind of sexual and intense, made him think about things that shouldn't be thought about when Theo is in the equation, at least in Liam's case. 

It really _was_ a shame that such a nice body had to go to _him_.

+++

Liam broke the silence a few minutes after the song ended, since the next song was quiet and it wasn't enough to fill the awkward silence. "But really, is there a reason that it's me in particular?" Liam asked, probably confirming Theo's beliefs that he talked too much. Theo glanced at him from his side while he was trying to start alphabetizing. "Did I do something wrong?"

Liam found it weird once he realized that he actually cared about the answer. An hour ago, he wouldn't have given a second thought to whether or not Theo liked him or even tolerated him, but the answer suddenly seemed more important than he knew it was. He knew that after this, they would probably go back to what Theo did to him before with the teasing and stealing, but he wanted to know.

"What do you mean?" Theo answered with another question, looking away from him again. That was another weird thing about Theo - he stared at him all the time in class, but now that they were alone, he wouldn't keep his eyes.

"You don't bother anybody else. I can be with a whole group of people and you still only go for me."

Theo grinned, and much to Liam's surprise, it seemed like there was it was genuine along with his amusement. "Who says there aren't others that you don't know about? Don't go thinking you're special," Theo scoffed, shaking his head.

Liam had to laugh. "...Okay, fair enough. Can you pass me the nonfiction pile?"

+++

They had fifteen minutes left in their detention period, and Theo was laying on the floor by the finished bookshelves. Neither of them were quite sure what to do with their time then, since they couldn't just leave, but they were both too zapped of their energy to screw around. Theo laid with his head by Liam's thigh, Liam sitting against the shelves.

"I think that we could have been friends," Liam decided out loud, looking at the ceiling. Theo took in a breath next to him and let it out slowly before answering.

"Nah. I'd still think you were annoying."

Liam's eyes snapped down to his closed eyelids. "So you admit that you find me annoying!" He exclaimed. Theo opened his eyes and raised an eyebrow at him. Even though he was upside down to Liam's view, the affect was still there. 

Theo shuffled up to sit next to Liam, stretching his arms out while Liam tried not to notice how impressive they actually were. "I've never heard anybody be so happy to be found annoying."

"Well, I did. Why do you think I'm annoying?" Liam asked, fully aware that Theo didn't like answering questions to begin with. Surprisingly, it didn't take Theo long to say this time, leaning his head back against the shelves and looking at the ceiling.

"Too distracting," He said with a shrug, only meeting Liam's eyes with his head tipped back when Liam looked at him with confusion.

"Huh?" 

Theo sat up a little straighter, looking at the ground and putting his elbows on his knees. "I don't know. You're loud and free and so out there with yourself. It's distracting and irritating."

It took Liam a second to register what he meant. Out there? "You think I'm annoying because I'm _bi?"_ He scoffed, stiffening up. He knew Theo was an asshole, but he never thought he was _that_ kind of asshole. Theo's eyes widened and his lips parted, a whole lot less relaxed now. 

"Wh- _no_ , I-" He stammered, and Liam would have thought it was satisfying hearing him off his game if he wasn't in defense mode. Theo struggled for the words, and Liam waited next to him for any answer that would redeem him. He couldn't believe he had been worried about this guy liking him. "I..."

 _"'You-?'"_ Liam mocked, wishing that he could finally just leave.

Theo looked at Liam for two long seconds before lunging forward. Liam didn't have time to bring his hands up in defense, thinking he was going to get punched or something, because Theo's mouth was suddenly on his and he had no idea what to do with that.

One of Theo's hands was on the other side of Liam's body, holding him up, and the other went up into Liam's hair, carding his fingers through it like he was afraid Liam was going to get away. While Theo moved with more fervor than Liam thought he was capable of, Liam stayed stock-still until his brain finally kicked in and he got with the program, kissing Theo back just as hard. 

Liam wasn't expecting this when he came to detention, but he also wasn't expecting the needy moan that rises out of Theo's throat when he started kissing him back, and he wasn't upset about either one of those things. In fact, Liam couldn't find anything to complain about when their mouths opened under each other's and Theo kept making little noises that he couldn't get enough of.

Liam moved the hand that Theo had been using to support his weight and put it on his thigh instead, Theo's fingers squeezing almost as soon as his palm touches denim. He did something with the combination of his tongue against Liam's and his hand still running through Liam's hair that forced a sound out of Liam's chest, but his first instinct to be embarrassed was taken over by Theo whimpering in turn. And Theo might be an asshole, one that Liam has detested for months, but he was also _sinfully_ hot with his hair and arms and face and eyes and _everything_ and he was warm against Liam's skin, so who the hell was Liam not to give him a chance? Who cared if he stole his pencils? Theo was now the only thing he could think about, clouding his brain, and not just because he had just slipped his hand underneath Liam's shirt to feel his abs.

They were still like that when Liam caught the sound of heels on the tiled hallway floors, and he had just enough time to grab Theo's wrist before the door opened. Mrs. Anders walked into the room to see Theo plastered to Liam's side, and Theo was just a second too late to avoid their English teacher seeing him kissing the same guy he'd gotten detention with.

Theo stared at the side of Liam's face, wide-eyed, jaw-clenched again, and frozen, which kind of sucked for both of them because Liam couldn't move his hand out from under his shirt. At least Theo had been able to get his hand out of his hair before acting like an ice sculpture, not that he thought this could get any worse. Liam looked at Mrs. Anders in pure terror, all three of them stiff.

"...Alright," She managed, clearing her throat. Liam didn't miss the way she didn't even look at the bookshelves, more focused on getting to her desk without seeing anymore than she already had. "You two are... _clearly_ getting along better. You may go." Liam didn't think he'd ever heard Mrs. Anders sound that mortified.

Theo chose then to unfreeze, grabbing Liam's hand and pulling him up with him. They all but ran out of that classroom, only breathing when they reached the deserted hallway. 

"Oh my God," Liam breathed, not having realized that he'd been holding his breath for almost as long as Theo had been kissing him. "I really thought she was going to flip."

"Nah, Mrs. Anders is my friend," Theo admitted breathlessly, a tiny smile coming to his lips. It looked good on him.

Liam looked at him with disbelief. "Theo Raeken? Friends with a _teacher?"_ He asked incredulously, loving it when Theo rolled his eyes in a way that was for once considered lighthearted.

"Hey, there's a lot that you don't know about me, Dunbar," Theo warned jokingly, still smiling at Liam. Liam almost couldn't imagine the looks he had been giving him just a few hours back when he threw water at him. Honestly, it was shaping up to seem like one of the best decisions of his life.

"Know about you _yet,"_ Liam corrected, bumping shoulders with Theo as they both started to walk down the hallway towards the front entrance. 

Theo looked at him, quiet for a second, before he slipped his hand into Liam's. _"...Yet,"_ He confirmed, squeezing his hand.

The two of them walked out of school that afternoon with a hell of a story to tell...or the first chapter of one, at least.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!
> 
> It's been a little while since I've posted anything, so I'm glad I finally got something done. I couldn't tell you where I got this idea, either...it just kind of happened and flowed well, so here we are! 
> 
> Comments are always appreciated, I like to think I'm getting better at responding to them :)


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